These are a few of my favorite things

Some of my current favorites of the adorable things Tatum does:

When she stands on her tip toes to peek into something.

When she points with her little pointer finger. Her other fingers are not quite bent, but are lower than her pointer finger. So cute.

When she bends down to look at something. She cocks her little head to the side and squats a little.

When she grabs my cheeks and pulls me in for kiss!! LOVE this! All of her kisses are sweet, but these are some of my favorite.

When she waves bye-bye at the door after Daddy leaves and keeps saying “bah bah”. The she will crawl over to the door and pull up because she knows Daddy went through the door.

When Daddy is telling her bye before he leaves and she will stop what she is doing and sit up really straight with her “kiss me” face so that he will come give her a kiss.

When I am holding her Daddy asks for a kiss. Sometimes she will think about it then act like she is going to kiss him, but then lunge and my face and give me a huge kiss instead. HA! She knows this is really funny and will laugh about it with us.

When people in the room (i.e. a restaurant or store) laugh and she hears them, she will start laughing with them really loudly so they know she is laughing too.

When we are having a conversation and she starts talking with us. Usually normal voice at first but she will start talking louder and louder until she is the center of attention.

How she always ‘makes friends’ in public. She picks out certain people and just waves and smiles ands says “hiiii” over and over. This happens at restaurants, in stores, etc.

When she says “mo mo” and signs ‘more’ with her sweet hands. It is absolutely precious. I would pretty much give her ‘more’ of whatever she wants because it melts my heart every time she does this.

When she sees anything Christmas related she says “ho ho ho” with a big O mouth. I will try to post a video. I don’t know if I know how to do that…

In other Tatumness, here are the words she currently says or has said on a somewhat regular basis:

Ho ho ho

Danta (santa)

Mama

Dada

Daddy

Gu- guu (good girl)

Mo ..mo (more) and signs this also

Signs all done

Shakes her head no

Bay..ba (baby)

Bah bah (bye bye)

Boo (bubbles)

Baah (bath)

She said jssshh once for Uncle Josh

Pa pa (Poppy and/or Papaw)

Tatum's Birth-Story

Our new family!!

My first time to hold her! (if you look close you can see poop)

The night before Tatum was born. 10/26/09

Looking at her sonogram pictures and praying over her while in the delivery room.

Tatum is over a year old now, and I realize that I never posted her birth-day story. In (belated) celebration of her birthday, I will do that now. I know this will be very boring to some of you, and very gross to others of you. Feel no pressure to read it… it is mostly for me to remember and (hopefully) compare it to the births of our other children someday.

So, as most of you know I had gestational diabetes while I was pregnant with Tater-tot. This means that 2x a week I had to go to Dr. Atkinson’s office for non-stress tests- basically, they put monitors on your belly (the same ones they use during labor) and give you a clicky button. You are supposed to push the clicky button every time your baby moves. When you click the button, it marks the spot on the heartbeat print-out thing (again, the same type thing as when you’re in labor). They check all the places where you clicked (i.e. the baby moved) and make sure her heartbeat did not drop with the movement, which would indicate distress. Thankfully, sweet Tatum always performed wonderfully at these NSTs (if your baby wasn’t being very active they would poke at her with a vibrator buzzy thing to wake her up- always seemed a little mean to me) and only had to be buzzed a few times. Her heartbeat was always strong and would increase with movement. However, the nurses and aides at Dr. Atkinson’s office were pressuring me to set an induction date as my actual; due date drew near. I did NOT want to schedule an induction unless medically necessary (yes diabetes is a possible medical reason, but she always did so well on the NSTs I figured she was healthy). Plus, I had been 2 cm dilated (not much) but 90% effaced (a lot) for like 3 weeks, I figured my water would break eventually…hopefully before an induction was necessary. When I explained this to the nurses they brought Dr. Atkinson in to talk to me about it. He agreed with me that it would be okay to wait as long as Tatum kept looking good. And to be sure of this, he wanted to do a high-risk sonogram on me right then. Never one to pass up an opportunity to see that sweet face, I excitedly agreed. Mostly, he was concerned with my fluid level and my placenta (which had been a grade 3 for some time…he said this meant it looked too mature… basically it wasn’t ideal). All of this looked normal. Then they did the measurements of the baby. This did not look so good. Her little belly had not grown enough from this last time they measured and this was concerning. Dr. Atkinson said he would call Dr. Devine and explain his findings to her. Dr. Devine was in surgery on this day so wasn’t able to look at the information. When I called her office in the afternoon, her wonderful nurse said she had relayed the information to Dr. Devine over the phone and that she wasn’t immediately too concerned. Phew. Then about 7 o’clock that evening Dr. Devine called me. She had just gotten back to her office after a full day in surgery and was looking through the information from Dr. Atkinson (side note- how wonderful is Dr. Devine? She went back to her office to take a closer look at that stuff after a long day and then called me to discuss it when she was technically ‘off the clock’). Dr. Devine was more concerned after looking more closely. She told me she trusted Dr. Atkinson’s opinion (not that I didn’t; I just wanted her opinion too) and felt induction the next morning would be the wisest move. Because Dr. Devine is wonderful and amazing and always respected my opinion and never once tried to force her views on me or pressure me to do something I didn’t feel right about, I took her advice. All of this process took over an hour (talking with Dr. Devine, discussing it with Brian, then talking to Dr. Devine again, then her scheduling the induction), so it was about 8:30pm when we knew we would be holding Tatum the next day.

Once we knew this wonderful news we called our parents to tell them. Then I did what any rational pregnant woman would do- I cleaned the house, did the laundry, and changed our sheets. Hello? When we came home from the hospital a BABY would be with us… things needed to be clean. Right? Once we (Brian was wonderfully understanding and helped me J) were finished with this, Brian and I went out to eat at my favorite restaurant- Olive Garden. Our parents (minus Kenny) came over to our house for a bit. They all had excuses as to why they came, but really they were just excited and wanted to see the belly one last time. After lots of pictures everyone left (including our dogs, whom Sharon took home to keep for us while we were in the hospital). Brian and I went to bed and actually slept really well. But then we had to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to get to the hospital. Of course I had to shower and shave before we left… which had grown increasingly difficult to do on account of the now quite large (and fantastic, I might add) belly.

Yes, you have read this far and we are not even at the hospital yet J

So, we get to the hospital, get checked in and get an enema. This was my first enema. It was not fun. Not that I expected it to be...but it really was not fun. I do not think I will opt for an enema next time around. Then I get hooked up to 2948734 lines and machines. Right after I got hooked up to the fetal monitors, I had my first real (not Braxton-Hicks) contraction. This was really exciting to me because they had not started the pitocin yet.

They started the pitocin really slowly- again because Dr. Devine is awesome and she knew that I didn’t want an epidural right away. So things moved fairly slowly at first. The contractions were strong but bearable. Oh, I forgot to say that we got to the hospital about 6am and things got started about 7am. At about 12pm Dr. Devine came in and we decided to go ahead and break my water (I had hoped this wouldn’t be necessary, but I didn’t want to face a c-section if things went too slowly.). It felt like a balloon popping and then like I peed my pants. Immediately after that, like 5 visitors came all at once. Also, immediately after that the pain got incrementally worse and I was in serious pain and had still not gotten an epidural. Bad timing for the visitors because I was too distracted by them to remember any other the techniques from birth class. However, one of said visitors was my dad (another side note- Dad was in surgery that morning in the same hospital and would come up and check on us between each case-super sweet). He was against holding off on the epidural for the past 9 months, and once we told him we were inducing he was REALLY against it (my dad can not handle seeing his baby in pain). When he saw me then he could tell things had gotten a lot worse since the last time he had seen me (not more than an hour) so he informed me that he was going to just go put my name on the epidural list, since there might be a wait, but I could always change my mind if I didn’t want it. Well, I did not change my mind. And Dr. Brown (awesome anesthesiologist) did not get there a second too soon. Brian was amazing (as always) during all of this and was right there for whatever I needed him for. My mom, who is an anesthesiologist herself, was in the room with me and Brian when Dr. Brown came in. She asked me if it would make me uncomfortable for her to be there during the epidural. I laughed and told her it did not make me uncomfortable, but she might need to ask Dr. Brown. Fortunately, Dr. Brown was not too intimidated by an anesthesiologist-mother watching because she did a wonderful job and I could not feel/move my feet for about 8 hours. I had several very strong contractions while she was doing the epidural, which was nerve racking for me. But sweet hubby held my hands really tight and helped me stay very still.

After the epidural a few more visitors came in, but I mostly tried to sleep. I don’t remember what time it was when Dr. Devine came in to check me and said I was 10cm and ready to push. But I did not feel the ‘urge’ to push, so she allowed me to wait. (I know, amazing doctor right. She could have just had me push so she could deliver and go home, but she allowed me to wait. Which meant she had to wait to.) At some point I started getting low blood sugar, a problem I had pre-pregnancy (yes it is strange that a hypoglycemic became hyperglycemic during pregnancy… no that is not common) but I was scared to eat a popsicle because I thought the spike in sugar might make Tatum’s insulin spike and then she would have low blood sugar when she was born and then they might not let me nurse her because they would want to giver her a sugar-water bottle. I tend to worry sometimes. I ended up eating the popsicle though because I was worried that if I didnt I would be too weak to push and I might have to get a c-section. I tend to worry sometimes. The popsicle made me feel 100x better though.

When Dr. Devine came back in around 2:25ish to check me I was still not having a huge urge to push but she checked me any way. When she lifted up the sheet she could see Tatum’s head poking out. Opps. That epidural was really working. Andi- nurse extraordinaire moved the mirror (which she had already placed in the room per my request- I wanted to see Tatum being born and I don’t have a giraffe neck.) into place and got things all set up while another nurse put my hair in a ponytail -because Brian didn’t know how and I could not lean forward without the use of my arms, thus having no free hand with which to ponytail.

Then it was time to push!! The first push I could not remember if I was supposed to hold my breath or breathe out.. so I did both for half the time. Then Andi suggested I pick one or the other and hold my breath. So the next contraction I held my breath and pushed. And that was it. Tatum was out. 2 pushes. 2 minutes. Bam.

As soon as Princess was born they placed her on my chest (at which time she pooped on me. The first of many J) I don’t remember much except looking into her eyes and talking to her. I don’t remember what I told her. I remember how my voice soothed her and how long her skinny little fingers were. She held onto my fingers. She was beautiful and perfect. Brian cut the cord during our moment. They took her to the little table thing in the room to check her out , check her sugar (which was good, the popsicle did not do as a I worried it might) and clean her up and poke her with things. Then Brian put on her first diaper. While this was happening, Dr. Devine was sewing me up from a stage 2 tear and I was asking to see the placenta (my parents are doctors, gross things interest me). Then they brought her back to me and I got to hold her again. Lots of people came in to see her at after that. Im pretty positive we broke lots of rules regarding how many people were supposed to be in that room. Millions of pictures were taken.

I had still not gotten to nurse Tatum and the lactation consultant was on her way (which I highly recommend, she was there the first time I nursed which was such a confidence booster) so I threatened everyone that my you-know-whats were coming out so they better leave if they didn’t want to see. Brian and my mom stayed. Tatum latched on perfectly the very first time (shes an over-achiever, what can I say). Nursing her that first time was such a sweet moment.

After nursing, they took Tatum to the nursery for more poking and prodding (standard procedure, not my preference) and moved us to the post-partum room. This is past lengthy so I will summarize the rest of the hospital stay- nursing hurt really bad and there was blood. Not much sleep. Lots of wonderful friends. It was sleeting when we took her home. Oh. And, Andi had to lift me from bed to wheelchair and then wheelchair to bed because my feet and legs were still totally numb. I didn’t walk or even stand until after 8pm.

Clean Up on Aisle 6

It seems like every mom I know has experienced one of her kiddos getting sick at a grocery store… not sure why it always seems to hit at the grocery store. Regardless, I am officially in the my-kid-threw-up-at-the-grocery-store club. Thankfully Brian was with us!

We were outside looking at the pumpkins and I was holding her when all of a sudden she and I were both covered in purple puke (blueberry yogurt for lunch…) A nice Market Street employee ran to get us some paper towels and Brian followed her. While he was gone Tatum re-drenched us and I decided it was time to head to the car. In the car on the way home she seemed completely fine. She wasn’t smiling but she never fussed or acted sick. This morning she wouldn’t nurse much at all, but ate her breakfast well. At lunch she would have nothing at all to do with nursing (I just thought she was letting me know she was ready to wean) but ate all her food. She wasn’t fussy this morning, but also wasn’t quite as perky as her usual self. Once we got home after the incident (and had a bath) she took a long nap and when she woke up she was totally herself. So… I don’t know if she had a minor tummy bug or what. But I do know that we are VERY grateful that she did not seem terribly uncomfortable or for an extended period.

After we had gotten home and she was asleep, I started to feel really bad about having left the mess at the grocery store and feeling like I should have cleaned it up before we left. Looking back, there really was no way I could have done that while taking care of her. But nonetheless, I felt guilty. Maybe because I know it can really ick me out when I see a yuck puddle somewhere in public. I consoled myself with the fact that an employee had seen it so it wouldn’t be left there for long. But it made me wonder- Other mothers, what do you do when your child gets sick in public? Is there some kind of protocol? Bear in mind that there were no warning gags to indicate this was coming to minimize damage with a bag or anything.

Just in case she was contagious for whatever made her puke coupled with the weather tonight, Tiny Princess and I decided to forgo Paradigm. We were sad to miss it, but we ended up having a lot of fun just the two of us at home playing and watching the rain. I love spending time with that little angel. She is so much fun and such a joy. She has a very silly little (well, actually BIG) personality and laughs a lot. I feel so blessed to be her Mommy.

PS- some of you reading this may be aware of my phobic tendencies regarding throw up, but rest assured, Tatum’s throw up does not count as throw up and therefore do not elicit my panic.J

Picture time!!

Tatum's first time at the Fair!

We got to go to another Rangers series- the last one before the playoffs

Have you ever seen a bigger HAM??

Beauty. This was at the corn maize

Cutest.bedhead.ever.

Pictures

...One day I will remember to attach the pictures to the blog.. but until then...

Tatum likes to cuddle the dog bed...and loves an audience when she does it

This is her 'concentrating' face!

She loves the outdoors

Our little Ranger! Daddy is proud!

Wispering

This is going to be a very random post comprised of sweet Tatum stories that I do not want to forget…

A few weeks ago Tiny Princess was sick with a little tummy bug and a sore throat and couldn’t sleep at all one night. After trying rocking her in her chair, laying with her on the couch, her swing (yes, she is 10 months and we JUST now stopped using her swing…what can I say- my girl loved her swing J) I decided to bring her into my and Brian’s bed at about 5 am. Brian woke up when we crawled in bed and I was whispering with him about how I had tried everything to comfort her to sleep but she was still awake. Sweet Tatum crawls up to where her head is even with ours and starts whispering with us! Brian and I just thought it was the most adorable thing ever! Tatum will often ‘talk’ with us when we are having a conversation by babbling and looking back and fourth between us. If we don’t pay her enough attention during these ‘conversations’ she raises her voice or growls until we look at her. Hilarious. On a related note- this precious little girl felt bad enough that she couldn’t sleep at all, but was not even fussing as long as I held her. It is so hard for me when I know she’s hurting. But I know she is in God’s loving hands. And we are so grateful that she is so rarely sick!!

Tatum loooves to be chased around the house- she crawls away from us while one of us follows her on our hands and knees humming the Jaws theme song. The other day she crawled around a corner while I was chasing her and when I reached the corner and poked my head around she was sitting up looking back at the doorway excitedly waiting for me. When she saw me her little face lit up and she yelled “Hiiiii” and turned to crawl away.

This one isn’t necessarily a story, because it is something she does often, but it cracks me up every time. Tatum is really ready to be able to stand up without assistance, but is not quite there balance-wise. So when she is playing with a toy on the floor she pushes her legs up to a standing position but her hands stay on the ground with her head looking down at the toy. She often does this with toys that play music so when her little tooshie is in the air she starts ‘dancing’- bouncing her booty up and down.

Hope these images brought a smile to someone elses face today too J I intend to keep posting little stories like this so I can remember them forever!

A few pictures

From our trip to Destin, Fl.

cutest bikini ever

the face that melts my heart!

All Things Tatum

Before I attempt to do any catch-up from the last 10 months of our lives, I guess I will start with a current update on Tiny Princess. She just hit 10 months!! Golly… I cant believe shes in the double-digit months already!! Someone asked me yesterday if she would be one next month, to which I intelligently replied “No, not until October”. Waaaaait…THAT’S NEXT MONTH!! Holy cow! Tatum will be one year old next month!! Still wrapping my mind around that… and yes, October is next month.

She is currently sleeping like an angel in her crib. I am watching her on the video monitor- she is flat on her back with her arms and legs sprawled out. CUTE.

She is crawling like crazy and getting really fast too. When she really moves her little tooshie wiggles and it cracks me up. She is a champ at pulling up on anything and everything. She can even do it one handed now. And against a wall…so theres not really anything to pull on, just the balance. She has stood without holding on to anything after pulling up a few times.

She talks up a storm, but only when she has something to say. Sometimes she will go a full hour without making a sound, just giggling. But sometimes she is non-stop babbling. She looooves other people, especially kids and babies. She is not at all shy around other kids- she will crawl right up to them and start playing with them. Sometimes even when the other kid is a little frightened or uninterested. J And she smiles and waves at everyone who will look at her at restaurants or in stores.

I still nurse her four times a day. And she is of course eating all kinds of other foods too. I have made all of her baby food, and she still eats lots of her foods puréed even though she is getting really good at feeding herself finger foods. She eats: carrots, green beans, yellow squash, zucchini, broccoli, sweet potatoes, peas, cauliflower, winter squash, black eyed peas, bananas, grapes, apples, peaches, prunes, watermelon, cantaloupe, nectarines, strawberries, kiwi, mangos, pears, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, asparagus, and yogurt. Prunes and yogurt are favorites. She also loves mangos and any kind of berries. She does NOT like avocado or potatoes.

Tatum loves loves loves the water and anything water-related. She loves swimming, baths, washing her hands, hoses… anything. She also enjoys having her little teeth brushed, which is adorable. Speaking of teeth, she has her bottom two and is working really hard on getting some top ones in… it looks like it might be four top ones at once. Poor Taytay. On that note, she also recently started biting me while she nurses.. no fun! If any mommies have any advice of how to get her to stop- PLEASE help! J

Tatum is a very very sweet and affectionate little girl. She likes to share- toys, food, drink, anything. And she gives TONS of sweet kisses (especially when shes sleepy). She loves her Daddy!! It melts my heart to see the two of them together. When he gets home from work, she crawls to him and puts her arms up to be picked up. When he picks her up she wraps her little arms over his shoulders and cuddles her head on him. All the while she has the sweetest little grin on her face. Like I said, this little girl loves her Daddy.

Whenever Tatum wakes up from a nap or in the morning she wants to be cuddled for a minute, then she will look toward her window and start waving; which means she is ready for you to walk to the window and open the blinds so she can “say hello” to the world. Then its milky time.

There are so many more things I could say about my tiny princess, but this is a good start. I have loved the last 10 months so much. Being a Mommy is the greatest experience of my life. Having my wonderful husband and raising my sweet baby girl is unbeatable. God has richly blessed our little family.

Grand Re-Entrance

In celebration of my re-entrance to the blogging world, I thought it would be appropriate to post this blog that I started writing on 10/26/2009 (the day before my sweet Tiny Princess was born), and never finished.

So, as our sweet little Tatum could arrive any day now, I think its appropriate to do one (maybe the last) pregnancy update blog! With just 3 days left until our due date, I am still loving pregnancy (so suck on that haters)! I have found that throughout this entire pregnancy, people have always been ‘warning’ me about how sick of it I am going to get or how much I am going to hate _________ part- at first it was “just wait until it gets hot, you are going to be so miserable!”. Well, this was one of the hottest summers we have had in a while… and while it certainly was hot, I never hated being pregnant. Then, “oh, just wait until your belly gets so big you can hardly move”. Ha! In my opinion, the bigger the belly, the better!! Bring it on! Perhaps it does take a lot of grunting and a considerable amount of time to roll over in bed (poor Brian.. this happens several times a night due to discomfort and numerous potty trips), but its kinda fun. And perhaps I do get stuck in my car door or bump into everything in sight with my belly… still fun. Then it seemed that all they had left was “wait until the very end when you feel like you’re about to pop”. Pretty sure I’m about as close to the end as possible, but I am not anxious to ‘get this baby outta here’. As excited as I am to see what Tatum looks like and cuddle her in my arms, I am going to miss carrying her inside of my womb. I will miss feeling all of her movements (yes even the painful colon/bladder kicks and when she rolls her head around on my bladder). I really will miss being pregnant.

On that note, since there is really nothing left to “warn” me about regarding which aspects of pregnancy I am going to hate the most, people have switched to warning me about how much I am going to hate labor. However, I anticipate enjoying labor just as much as I have enjoyed this pregnancy. I am eagerly anticipating the experience.

I think that the only part of pregnancy that I have disliked has been all of the unwelcome advice I have gotten. Particularly regarding labor/delivery. The most common being that I absolutely must get an epidural and that I should get it as soon as I can upon arriving at the hospital. I am praying not to require an epidural, and to at least go as long as I possibly can without one. People just assume that because they or their wife had one, that epidurals are the only way to go and delivery simply cannot be accomplished without one. What is right for one person is not necessarily right for the next. I am happy that all of those women enjoyed their birth experience with an epidural, but that does not mean that is how I want my delivery to go.